


i made a sacrifice, but forced a bigger sacrifice on you

by advanced_fanatic



Category: RWBY
Genre: Betrayal, Character Death, Character Death Fix, Fake Character Death, Fucked Up Sibling Relationships, Gen, Gretchen Rainart (RWBY) Lives, Gretchen Rainart is the Summer Maiden, Not Really Character Death, Protective Siblings, Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY), Volume 8 (RWBY), and i want her to fuck!! hazel!! up!!, but i do think yang would hold a bit of a grudge, fuck her and everything she does to people, god i hope this is somehow canon, gretchen is an Actual Cryptid, i love this version of gretchen, if not this exactly, listen fuck salem, listen i love the man, or that he joined Salem, she got dealt a SHIT hand but that doesn't give her an excuse to fuck everyone else up, she has no technology on purpose, slightly undeserved ozpin bashing, so she has NO clue her brother's a wanted murderer, so that will be fun for her lol, specifically so that nobody can find her, then at least her somehow being alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28446060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advanced_fanatic/pseuds/advanced_fanatic
Summary: Twenty-odd years ago, Gretchen Rainart faked her own death to become the Summer Maiden. Now, as Salem's forces encroach on Atlas, she joins the fight only to be confronted with a familiar face.
Relationships: Gretchen Rainart & Hazel Rainart, Jaune Arc & Lie Ren & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	i made a sacrifice, but forced a bigger sacrifice on you

**Author's Note:**

> This is for one of my best friends! She doesn't have an AO3, so I sadly can't tag her, but she helped me get my thoughts in order for the fic and encouraged me to write it! Thank you so much!

It was a complete coincidence that Gretchen was even in town that day, let alone standing near a scroll. Food had been scarce, lately, with a sudden, strange increase in bandits and scavengers, so she’d been forced to stop in a small town in Mantle to pick up some odd jobs in hopes of earning money to actually  _ buy _ food as opposed to hunting it herself.

As it turned out, even in a town money was scarce and food scarcer, but she had found a rather well-off family who had agreed to give her dinner in exchange for chasing off some Grimm--child’s play for a Huntress and Maiden of Gretchen’s caliber, although of course she wasn’t stupid enough to actually let on. That was the thing about living in hiding for twenty-four years--attracting attention--especially attention based around her fighting prowess--was something she tended to avoid.

She had been sitting with the family, scarfing down her dinner, when suddenly, every screen in the house flickered on, a young girl with dark hair dyed red at the tips, silver eyes, and a red cloak standing in the center.

The wife gasped, nudging her husband to point at the screen as the girl began to speak.

“Hi, my  name is Ruby Rose. I’m a Huntress. And if we’ve done everything right, then I’m talking to all of Remnant right now. Dr. Polendina can explain more later, but right now you all need to know that the Kingdom of Atlas is under attack. Things are dire, and we need help. But please, try not to panic. This isn’t some new enemy or invading Kingdom. This is a force we’ve faced before, for centuries… Salem.”

Gretchen narrowed her eyes. This girl was telling the world about Salem? Worse yet, Salem was attacking Atlas? What condition was it in? Why was this child telling the world instead of, oh, James Ironwood or Ozpin? What had  _ happened? _

“The White Fang, Atlesian drones, even the Grimm themselves have all been controlled and manipulated by  _ her _ , in order to tear down the Huntsman Academies.”

Wait,  _ what? _ The White Fang? Weren’t they a peaceful group just getting their legs under them? And what the fuck was a  _ drone? _ Gretchen was seriously regretting totally cutting herself off from technology over the past twenty-some years--sure, she had remained successfully off-grid, but she had clearly missed out on a  _ lot. _

“...I know the idea of the Maidens and Relics seems… well…  _ crazy _ , but I promise Professor Goodwitch of Beacon and Headmaster Theodore of Shade can verify all of this,” Ruby Rose continued. 

Gretchen blinked. She must have missed the girl explaining all of that. Shit. What had she told the world about them? This could have been her one chance to find out how much people knew about her without revealing herself!

“They might even be able to help organize a way to fight back. But sadly, General Ironwood can no longer be trusted.”

...Fuck. Well, that explained why he wasn’t giving this broadcast, at least. But still.  _ Fuck. _

“We didn’t have time to prepare for Salem. But now you  _ do! _ Just because she can’t be destroyed, doesn’t mean she can’t be  _ beaten _ . If she really was unstoppable, she wouldn’t have acted with such caution until now. She knows we’re a threat. So even if we-- even if Atlas falls, you can’t give up. I hope Amity Tower will help bring us all together. Because in the end, that’s how we’ll win--”

The feed abruptly fritzed out, and Gretchen bit back a curse as the wife gasped in fear and one of the children started crying. That--that was barely Salem 101! And what had happened to Ruby Rose--why had she stopped broadcasting? Gretchen could get behind the girl’s goal--after all, the idea that, even if Salem couldn’t be killed (as she had, unfortunately, found out after a hell of a lot of rumor-chasing after some idiot dedicated two weeks to constantly killing her--Gretchen had to respect the guy’s balls for that, although she pitied him and his family--their fate must have been awful) she could be stopped had been one that Gretchen had been operating under for years, and had been the driving force behind her faking her death and dropping out of Beacon, even though she’d been sure, then, that she would be able to kill her and return home to her brother within a few years.

“What do you think that means?” the wife asked, looking around the table at her family and Gretchen.

“It means,” Gretchen said grimly, “that it’s time for me to go to Atlas.”

  
  


When Gretchen was seventeen, she’d been accepted into Beacon. This had been a point of contention between her and her brother Hazel. Hazel, despite being strong as an ox and with a Semblance that was handy in a fight, was staunchly pacifistic and believed that, above all else, the twins should stick together. It was a dream of his to eventually become a baker in a big city, and Gretchen fullheartedly believed he could do it--he made a killer loaf of bread. But for as long as she could remember, Gretchen had dreamed of becoming a Huntress. She would practice with her club early in the mornings and late at night, and was adept at chasing away Grimm, and one day, while stopping by town to pick up some food for dinner, she had seen applications for Beacon Academy and filled one out. It wasn’t like she’d even get in, she’d reasoned with herself. She was a young girl with no real schooling from the Middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Vale. Surely many more talented students would be applying, so there was no reason to worry Hazel over it.

To her surprise, though, a few months later her acceptance letter came in through the mail, along with a hefty scholarship. She was going to become a Huntress!

Hazel, however, did not share Gretchen’s enthusiasm, and they’d gotten into a massive fight about it.

“When you die fighting Grimm for that Headmaster,” he’d howled, “don’t come crying to me!” 

“And when your house is overrun by Grimm, don’t come crying to me either!” she’d shrieked back, and slammed her way out of their house with nothing other than her weapon, her acceptance letter, and enough money for a train ticket in her pocket.

In the end, Hazel and Gretchen reconciled enough to send each other the occasional letter during Gretchen’s time at Beacon, but they were both too stubborn and prideful to really apologize to the other, and so Gretchen remained at Beacon year-round, and Hazel never once came to visit her. At the time, Gretchen regretted this only slightly; after all, she fully believed that she would be returning home at some point, and then Hazel would see how awesome of a fighter she was and realize that, just because she didn’t want to be a pacifistic baker, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t remain close.

But then, at the beginning of her second year at Beacon, she ran into a dying woman. Her aura was shattered, and Gretchen’s Semblance went wild at her injuries, so there was nothing she could do without causing the woman more pain.

She explained to Gretchen with her dying breaths that she was the Summer Maiden, the bearer of a great elemental power, fighting the good fight alongside Professor Ozpin and the other Headmasters against a human Grimm named Salem who wished to destroy Remnant. She told her how Salem had been trying to get her power, how she had slaughtered her family and then gone after her. And then she had gone limp, and unimaginable power had rushed into Gretchen.

Gretchen was  _ terrified. _ A human Grimm? Elemental powers? The destruction of Remnant--a personal grudge against  _ Hazel _ if anyone found out she had these powers? Gretchen may have been angry with her brother, but she would die if anything happened to him--especially if it was because of her. If this...Salem wanted her and her new powers, if she would kill her  _ brother _ to get what she wanted, then Gretchen only had one option: she had to kill her first. 

Gretchen didn’t have much time, so after a few minutes of deliberation, she switched her school uniform with the former Summer Maiden’s armor and scribbled a quick note to her brother, which she kept vague and tucked into the pocket of her old uniform:  _ Hazel--something really big’s happened, and I need to help Prof. Ozpin with something, so I’m going to be gone for a bit. I swear I’ll come home soon. All my love--G. _ Thank the gods, she reflected, that she and the former Maiden had similar hairstyles--or, similar enough to be mistaken for each other after a few days of decomposition, anyway.

She then dragged the corpse up into a tree, in a position that Gretchen might reasonably take and where she was unlikely to be spotted until she had decomposed enough that people would actually believe that she was Gretchen Rainart, Aspiring Huntress, and then she hurried off into the forest. She had a witch to kill.

  
  


Gretchen, surprisingly, made pretty good traffic to Atlas. As a fully realized Maiden, she could fly reasonably well, and the massive Grimm army made for  _ excellent _ cover. She landed near the large whale, as a group of three teenagers carrying weapons headed towards it, whispering among themselves. They stared at her, and the blonde boy stepped in front, raising his sword.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m the Summer Maiden,” Gretchen said, allowing some of her power to leak out of her eyes, the wind picking up around them. “Are you with Salem, or Ruby Rose?”

“Ruby’s my little sister,” said the blonde girl. “You...did you see the broadcast?”

“Yeah.” Gretchen folded her arms. “Where’s Salem?”

“Inside the whale. She has our friend, Oscar, too--he’s Ozpin’s reincarnation, sort of, and she kidnapped him for something,” the blonde boy said.

Gretchen frowned. “Ozpin can reincarnate?”

“Yeah, uh, it’s some sort of curse? I guess? From the gods? Until Salem is defeated. We can explain more after we get Oscar out--Ironwood’s gonna blow up the whale soon, and we want to get in and out before he does.”

“Ironwood who is untrustworthy,” Gretchen said.

“Yeah.” The blonde boy rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s...a lot. A lot’s happened. How much do you know?”

Gretchen shrugged. “Just what I could puzzle out for myself. The Maiden before me was killed along with her family by Salem; I dropped off the map so that the same wouldn’t happen to mine. I haven’t had a single conversation with Ozpin about it yet.”

“Well, seeing as he lies through his teeth at every opportunity, that might be a good thing,” the blonde girl muttered.

“Oscar says he’s gotten better,” the blonde boy said.

“He has been acting better since he came back,” the dark-haired boy agreed. “Anyway, I’m Lie Ren. These are my teammates, Yang Xiao Long and Jaune Arc.”

The girl--Yang--grinned at her and shot finger-guns. The blonde boy--Jaune--waved awkwardly.

“Great,” Gretchen said. “You said Salem and your friend are inside the whale?”

“Yeah,” Yang said. “Oscar.”

“Right. Well, then, let’s get moving.” Gretchen clapped her hands twice and turned toward the whale. Jaune, Yang, and Ren fell into formation behind her as they slipped in, Ren activating some sort of Semblance on them, its mouth slowly opening--and then slamming shut behind them.

“Well, that wasn’t ominous at all,” Jaune muttered.

“Shut up, Jaune!” Yang hissed.

“I was just saying--”

“Both of you, be quiet. If anyone catches us here, we’re  _ dead,” _ Ren cut in. Yang and Jaune both shut their mouths immediately.

Behind the scolding and bickering, there was an undercurrent of warmth that made Gretchen ache for the days she’d had that--with her team, with her brother. She hadn’t been close to someone in decades.

Just until Salem’s defeated, she reminded herself. Just hold on until Salem’s defeated, and then you can find Hazel and live out his dream of the Rainart Siblings Bakery. Just a little longer. Hold on just a little longer, and you won’t have to be alone anymore.

The four of them wandered the halls of the whale aimlessly for a few minutes before stopping by a door where they could hear blows and a child crying out in pain, intermixed with muffled voices.

“That’s Oscar,” Yang mouthed.

Gretchen nodded, raising her club as Yang cocked the guns on her wrists and prepared to kick down the door. Behind her, Jaune drew his sword and Ren rested his hands on two dark green guns. Yang closed her eyes for a moment and slowly exhaled, and when she opened them again, they were red as blood.

She rushed the door and it swung open as a girl cried out in pain, flickering into existence as she stumbled back into the room, where a large man was standing over a bruised and bloodied boy hanging, suspended by ropes. He turned to look as Yang barreled over the girl and straight at him. He blocked her blows with ease as Jaune went after the girl on the ground, leaving Ren and Gretchen to run for the boy. He blinked up at her blearily as she burned through his bindings.

“...H’zel?”

Gretchen’s heart burned in her chest. He must know her brother, somehow--either the boy housing Ozpin, or Ozpin himself, and either way, Gretchen had to ask how.

But that could wait until later--Yang was clearly struggling against the larger man, so she deposited Oscar into Ren’s arms and slammed into the man as he fell back and started injecting Dust into his veins, like some fucking maniac--or, she supposed, an addict. She activated her Semblance and he screamed in pain, before falling silent and looking at her through narrowed eyes.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “Your Semblance…”

“Bet that Dust is hurting like hell right now, huh, motherfucker?” she taunted.

“What’s your Semblance?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

“She’s the Summer Maiden, bitch!” Yang shouted, slamming into him. He hit her across the room, then turned back to Gretchen, eyes wild.

“What’s your name?!” 

“Why the hell would I introduce myself to one of Salem’s minions?” she shot back. “That would just be putting myself and my brother in direct danger--I know what you fuckers do to the families of Maidens! I faked my own death for a reason!”

“You have a brother…” he said. “What’s his name?”

“Like hell I’m telling  _ you!” _ she shouted, knocking him back with a wave of water. He only moved a few steps, though, which was really a pity. This bastard was  _ strong. _

“We’ve fought him before--I don’t think he feels pain like the rest of us!” Yang shouted, picking herself up and joining Jaune in the fight against the girl.

“My twin brother has a Semblance like that,” Gretchen mused aloud, and the man blanched. She didn’t pay it too much mind, though--he probably had figured out that she knew how to counter that--which, well, she did. Her own Semblance amplified the pain of people who were touching her or her weapon, and when she and Hazel had scuffled as young children, it often came down to a tug-of-war between their auras to see which was strongest. Gretchen, who loved fighting, usually won. 

She leapt at the man, using the fire from her Maiden powers to give her an extra jolt of speed, raising her club to smash it down on the man’s head. He dodged out of the way, but oddly didn’t go for a counterstrike, despite having used one when Yang pulled a similar move earlier. Pity--Gretchen had her own counter prepared.

Honestly, maybe that was why.

“Are you Gretchen Rainart?” he shouted, and Gretchen’s blood ran cold.

“How the  _ hell _ do you know that name?!” she snapped.

“Uh,” Jaune said. He exchanged glances with Yang, Ren, and the now-subdued green-haired girl.

“Are you?” he asked, sounding almost desperate.

“You know, if you are, that would be  _ hilarious,” _ Jaune said.

Yang stomped on his foot.

“Ow! Hey, what was that for?” he complained.

“It wouldn’t be funny, it would be  _ weird. _ Also, a helluva coincidence.”

“Weird in a funny way, though.”

“If she is, Nora will  _ hate _ to miss it,” Ren said, almost morosely.

Gretchen narrowed her eyes at them. “What do you mean, why?”

“Well,” Yang said, waving her hand at the man dramatically, “Mr. Hazel Rainart here has a bit of a sister complex...apparently, his sister Gretchen was killed in a training accident at Beacon a few years ago and he joined Salem to get revenge on Ozpin for it.”

...Gretchen had never gone through the five stages of grief so fast. All this time--all this time she’d been working her ass off fighting Grimm and tracking down Salem’s disciples for information on how to kill her, all her time working in the shadows and cutting herself off from society, all so that she could keep her precious brother safe--and he’d been working for Salem all along?!

“YOU’RE FUCKING  _ WHO?!” _ she screeched.

“Oh my gods…” the man--Hazel--fucking  _ Hazel-- _ whispered. “You’re  _ alive?” _

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING MURDER YOU! FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK, I ASK YOU TO DO ONE THING! ONE! FUCKING! THING! WHILE I MURDER SALEM! AND YOU FUCKING  _ JOIN _ HER?!”

“She can’t be killed!” Hazel shouted back.

“YEAH, I MCFUCKING KNOW THAT, APPARENTLY SOME DUMBASS WENT AND TRIED TO KILL HER FOR A WEEK STRAIGHT LIKE A DECADE OR SO AGO, THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT IT FOR WEEKS! THAT DOESN’T GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO FUCKING  _ JOIN HER!” _

“...Actually, I’m pretty sure the guy you heard about  _ was _ Hazel,” the green-haired girl supplied helpfully from where the other three teens were holding her down. “I overheard him tell Oscar that he only joined her after he  _ literally _ couldn’t lift his arms to kill her anymore.”

Gretchen pinned Hazel with a glare. “I  _ literally _ faked my own  _ fucking _ death to keep you safe and away from Salem, and you fucking  _ sought her out?! _ Good gods, Hazel, what the hell is wrong with you?! You know what? I don’t care.” Hazel flinched, slightly, as if Gretchen had just gotten him good with her Semblance, but she continued on. “I don’t give one  _ gods damned fuck. _ We’re on a fucking time limit--I’m taking you prisoner and we’re blowing this joint--literally!”

Luckily, the fight seemed to have gone out of Hazel. He let her tie him up, and somehow even convinced the green-haired girl--Emerald, apparently, she was very aptly named, which either meant her parents weren’t very creative or she named herself--to create an illusion to keep them from being spotted. Gretchen didn’t spare her brother a glance as they made their way out of the mouth of the whale.

She couldn’t wait until Ironwood dropped his bomb in it. She hoped the place got blown to hell. She hoped the entire city got blown to hell.

As far as Gretchen Rainart was concerned, the whole world could burn so long as Salem burned with it. After all, there was nothing in the world that she needed to protect anymore.


End file.
